Widget Watch: Carpenter&#039;s level

Now this is a cool widget. The Carpenter's Level is a Dashboard widget that responds to your (so equipped) iBook or Powerbook's built-in motion detector. Tilt your laptop to the left or right and watch the bubble move. This widget has been written to go to "sleep" when Dashboard is inactive, so don't worry about it continually monitoring your laptop's position in space.

I don't have an iBook or Powerbook that I could try this with, so if you do, please post your experience in the comments. If you're a carpenter who actually gives this a try on the job site, we definitely want to hear from you.

[Via Daring Fireball]

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Source: http://pallit.lhi.is/palli/dashlevel/

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Widget Watch

Now this is a cool widget. The Carpenter's Level is a Dashboard widget that responds to your (so equipped) iBook or Powerbook's built-in...

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Noface

I have a 12" ibook and i get no bubble, I have the motion sensor though...

January 27 2006 at 2:45 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

CSR

RE: Davidlow - you could have the widget zoom in and out depending on how you tilted the laptop forward or back.

January 24 2006 at 1:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Davidlow

Feature Request: (Even though I don't actually have a motion detector in my PowerBook):

Have it detect forward-backward tilting as well as left-right. The challenge would be to create the visualization for this.

January 24 2006 at 12:35 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Christian Gehrke

I have a 15 inch 1.25 ghz powerbook and it doesn't work either. Oh well. Would be cool but I think I will live without it.

January 24 2006 at 10:36 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Alan

Neat program.

January 24 2006 at 12:13 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Brian

The widget really only works as a level if your computer was level when you started the widget. The motion sensors in the PowerBooks are really accelerometers, not position/rotation sensors. In other words, they detect when the machine is changing speed. In order to obtain the orientation of the computer, you need to integrate the acceleration data over time twice, so there's bound to be some error, too.

January 23 2006 at 11:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Louis C.

@Guilherme: Of course it does. It's not made by Microsoft.

Very cool :)

January 23 2006 at 11:56 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Matt Rodkey

I saw David Pogue demonstrate this at a the SF Apple Store during MWSF. Very funny!! Not only is it a cool widget, its a built in Joke for a presenter using powerbook :)

January 23 2006 at 11:22 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Kisco

nice widget !

It's as funny as the application "Stable window" :

http://kisco.free.fr/download/stable_window_demo_ibook.mp4

January 23 2006 at 9:51 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Tomm

In reply to MikeV, I believe Apple put these into the latest iBooks, and the January (?) 05 revision of the PB. The ones just before the hi-res ones. I think.

January 23 2006 at 9:33 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply